LightZone
Encyclopedia
LightZone is a digital photo editor software application from Light Crafts. Its main purpose is to handle the workflow when handling images in various RAW
formats. It's comparable to Adobe Systems
's Photoshop Lightroom.
, Mac OS X
and Linux
are available commercially. Although the Linux version was free of charge in earlier versions, its price was adapted with the latest 3.5 release.
In mid-September, 2011, the Light Crafts web site went totally offline without notice. It is reported that Fabio Riccardi, founder of Light Crafts and the primary developer of LightZone, is now working as an Apple employee, as evidenced by his LinkedIn profile.
format images.
LightZone can create and apply pre-determined image transformations, called "styles", to an entire batch of images in a single operation. Using styles, photographers make and save their own preferred compensations for each RAW image based upon camera
specific characteristics. Once created, a style is easily applied to multiple images, allowing those standard camera compensations to be applied to every image before the photographer ever views or edits it.
LightZone is a non-destructive RAW editor. It treats the digital image original (typically a RAW file) as precious and non-editable. When LightZone edits an original digital image, a new resulting post-edit image file is created (for example a new JPEG
copy) and the original image file is left unaltered. By being non-destructive LightZone preserves the original "digital negative" which contains the maximum information originally captured by the camera, and allows additional images with different transformations to be produced from the original.
LightZone outputs JPEG files which contain meta data references to the original image file location and a record of the transformations applied during editing.
Because the JPEG output files that LightZone creates contain the entire transformation history, edits can always be undone in a new edit session, long after they were saved. Indeed, the same transformations can be easily reordered and additional transformations applied subsequently to yield further image improvements. Additionally, since transformations always begin with the original RAW image rather than an intermediate JPEG version, JPEG compression related editing artefacts are avoided.
RAW image format
A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor...
formats. It's comparable to Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
's Photoshop Lightroom.
History
Versions for WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
are available commercially. Although the Linux version was free of charge in earlier versions, its price was adapted with the latest 3.5 release.
In mid-September, 2011, the Light Crafts web site went totally offline without notice. It is reported that Fabio Riccardi, founder of Light Crafts and the primary developer of LightZone, is now working as an Apple employee, as evidenced by his LinkedIn profile.
Features
LightZone edits both RAW and JPEGJPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
format images.
LightZone can create and apply pre-determined image transformations, called "styles", to an entire batch of images in a single operation. Using styles, photographers make and save their own preferred compensations for each RAW image based upon camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
specific characteristics. Once created, a style is easily applied to multiple images, allowing those standard camera compensations to be applied to every image before the photographer ever views or edits it.
LightZone is a non-destructive RAW editor. It treats the digital image original (typically a RAW file) as precious and non-editable. When LightZone edits an original digital image, a new resulting post-edit image file is created (for example a new JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
copy) and the original image file is left unaltered. By being non-destructive LightZone preserves the original "digital negative" which contains the maximum information originally captured by the camera, and allows additional images with different transformations to be produced from the original.
LightZone outputs JPEG files which contain meta data references to the original image file location and a record of the transformations applied during editing.
Because the JPEG output files that LightZone creates contain the entire transformation history, edits can always be undone in a new edit session, long after they were saved. Indeed, the same transformations can be easily reordered and additional transformations applied subsequently to yield further image improvements. Additionally, since transformations always begin with the original RAW image rather than an intermediate JPEG version, JPEG compression related editing artefacts are avoided.
Awards
- On December 19, 2007, LightZone was awarded a MacWorldMacworldMacworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...
's 23rd Annual Editors' Choice Award.